G(r)eek Chorus, Part V

I couldn’t help noticing that both Hubie Brooks and Todd Zeile belong the category of Reacquired Mets, which is always an interesting one.

By my count (which is almost certainly wrong) there are 23 members of

this club, and a look at their mostly-not-august ranks shows how rarely

this works. What you’re hoping for is a Nice Comeback: Lee Mazzilli, Tom Seaver and Rusty Staub, though Seaver’s return got botched and Al Jackson was a story that should’ve been nice but didn’t wind up mattering much. Against that you have to set Bad Idea Comebacks: Bobby Bonilla, Jeromy Burnitz, Roger Cedeno and Tsuyoshi Shinjo. Then there are Shrug Your Shoulders Comebacks (Mike Jorgensen, Dave Kingman, Bill Pulsipher), Aggressively Pointless Comebacks (Lenny Harris, Kevin McReynolds, and I guess Mr. Jackson), Second Comings of Inconsequential Players (Bill Almon, Mike Birkbeck, Jeff McKnight, Pete Walker), Weird Comebacks (Tim Foli, Bob L. Miller, Alex Trevino) and the one Truly Weird Comeback (Greg McMichael‘s reacquisition in the same season he was sent away). To this we can add Comebacks That Almost Were (Jesse Orosco, Seaver III before the mighty Barry Lyons stepped into the cage, others I’m no doubt forgetting) and Future Comebacks (Pat Mahomes is lurking somewhere, and I’d be shocked if some combination of Edgardo Alfonzo, Octavio Dotel, Alex Escobar, Mike Kinkade, Terrence Long, Melvin Mora, Jay Payton, John Thomson, Ty Wigginton and Vance Wilson

A Shrug Your Shoulders Comeback is one in which the player does some little something or other for the team the second time around, but in no way changes your opinion of him. An Aggressively Pointless Comeback is one in which so little is accomplished in the second go-round that two years later you have to be reminded the player was ever reacquired. (Bill Pulsipher should probably be an APC, not a SYSC, but I'm a fan.)
In other words, yes, it's just caprice.

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